


Birds of a Feather

by WhiteravenGreywolf



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And just like her dad she likes to brood, F/M, Family Drama, Family Feels, Keyleth and Vax have a kid, Post-Canon, but also AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 11:10:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21510106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteravenGreywolf/pseuds/WhiteravenGreywolf
Summary: For as long as she could remember, Vilya had had an affinity with ravens. Soon after she was born, ravens had flocked to her, surrounded her crib and croaked her to sleep. To the other members of the clan, it was an omen. To her mother, it was a sign that her father was keeping watch over her. To Vilya, it didn't matter, because her dad was never there. He didn't matter.
Relationships: Keyleth/Vax'ildan (Critical Role)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 95





	Birds of a Feather

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I should probably catch up to Campaign 1 before I start writing fanfiction, especially post-canon one...  
> Also Me: *Writes Birds of a Feather*
> 
> So yeah, I still haven't caught up with campaign 1, but I just wrote a post-canon story where Keyleth and Vax have a kid. No way this is going to go sideways, right? I spoiled myself, I did my research, so I hope this story is as close to the canon as possible. Even if it isn't, I hope you can still enjoy it!  
> PS: For those interested the sequel to The Runaway is coming soon, I've just been busy with my own D&D prep and getting all my stuff together to apply for grad school.

For as long as she could remember, Vilya had had an affinity with ravens. Soon after she was born, ravens had flocked to her, surrounded her crib and croaked her to sleep. To the other members of the clan, it was an omen. To her mother, it was a sign that her father was keeping watch over her.

They didn't talk about him much, and all Vilya knew she'd had to pry out of them, not caring how painful those memories could be to them. Her mother so rarely spoke of him that she had only learned two things from her. Her father hadn't been an Air Ashari, but a member of Vox Machina, like all of her aunts and uncles. And he was never there because he had become the Champion of the Raven Queen, the goddess of death. From her aunt Vex, her father's sister, she'd learned a bit more. His name was Vax'ildan – Vax, to his friends. He was kind, and quick on his feet, and funny. He liked to rush into things rather than plan ahead. He'd loved them all, and he had given his life to save them. He loved her too, aunt Vex had assured Vilya, and he was always watching over her.

It all felt so strange to her. Sometimes they spoke of him as if he were dead, sometimes as if he were alive and simply hard at work. Whatever the case may be, to Vilya it didn't change a thing. Her father wasn't there.

Around the age of ten, Vilya stopped asking altogether. She'd gleaned all that she could from her mother, and her aunts, and her uncles. The subject of her father became touchy even to her. Whenever she did something remotely rebellious against her mother, expecting to be punished, all she got was a sigh and a 'you're so much like your father', which angered her even more.

Now close to her sixteenth birthday, Vilya had earned the reputation of a troublemaker, the likes of which her mother had never been at her age. She skipped classes so often the teacher had stopped complaining to her mother about it. The Air Ashari had learned quickly that seeing a flash of red hair from the corner of their eyes meant that something bad was about to befall them. When they saw her at all.

Like a magpie, she'd stolen any shiny trinkets she could get her hands on, whether they hung on a neck or were hidden in a locked box. At least once a week someone came to her mother to complain about Vilya's ill-usage of Druidcraft, as she had made all sorts of branches grow from the beams of the roof, turning the inside of the house into a thick shrubbery. She alone had managed to bring chaos to the usually quiet village of Zephrah. But until that day, no one had ever been hurt. Until that day.

It was an ingenious prank, really. Vilya had gotten her hands on a medallion hidden away in her mother's desk. It had taken her a moment to figure out how to use it, and how to make the best use of it. Her prank was ready now, and she knew exactly who deserved it. Elminar had been very sour after her last prank and refused to sell her any food. We'll see how he likes his apples when there's a tree in the middle of his house. 

Vilya expertly turned into a raven and took the pendant in her talons. All she had to do was place the pendant in his house, let a few drops of water fall on it and a small tree would grow out of it.

She flew out of her bedroom window and flew over the village, toward the merchant's house. She landed on the roof of a nearby house, just across the street, observing it for a moment. She couldn't see anyone inside. Her target must have been at work.

Just as she was about to fly off, twigs started to wrap around her legs, and quickly climbed all over her body, trapping her. She croaked fearfully and batted her wings with all the strength a raven possessed.

“Got ya!”

She stopped struggling as her attention snapped toward the voice below her. Elminar was celebrating. Vilya stopped struggling and glared down at the man. She croaked.

“I know it's you, Vilya, I recognize your circlet! What were you going to do this time, hm? Flood my house? Burn it to the ground?”

If ravens could roll their eyes, Vilya would have.

"Well, you won't get to! You are staying right where you are. We'll see what your mother has to say!"

She's gonna do nothing, Vilya thought. Like she always does.

Elminar had just turned around when he heard a loud crack. He barely had time to face the house again, only to see Vilya standing on the roof, the medallion dangling out of her hand.

"Hey Elminar, you've ever had a tree in your house?"

Faraday's eyes grew wide as Vilya nimbly jumped off the roof.

"Oh no, you don't!"

Energy gathered in Elminar's hands and he threw a gust of wind her way. Vilya started running. She knew if she could run to the edge of the village and turn into any sort of flying creature, she could hide in the forest further down the mountain for the rest of the day. Elminar was hot on her heels, trying to stop her in any way he could think. Vilya had to jump over roots emerging out of the ground. Another gust of wind hit her in the back. She tumbled and pushed herself back up in the same second, and started running again.

She only realized too late that Elminar had been leading her to the center of the village, where a few people were talking and gathering water out of the well. Her home was at the end of the square and seeing the time of day it was most likely that her mother would be there too. Now was the time for an express getaway.

She jumped and turned into a raven once again. However, she hadn't taken the medallion into account, and as she shifted, it fell out of her hand, now a wing, and dropped toward the ground. As Vilya looked back, moving to make one last-ditch effort to catch it, and was horrified to see it tumble into a bucket full of freshwater.

There was a crack and a bang as everyone was suddenly pushed back. A single, massive tree broke out of the bucket and destroyed the top of the well. The trunk was so large that it rammed into the nearest house, splintering the wall. The branches grew and immediately broke against the nearby mountain front. The fell with a deafening sound toward the ground, and the people underneath.

Vilya had been pushed back by the growing trunk and knocked out of her raven shape. As she pushed herself off the ground, her head ringing, she saw the branches falling toward the people, who'd coward under the magical tree. Her eyes grew wide and she tried to jump toward them, to get them out of the way.

The branches never touched the ground. There was light thump on the stone, and the wind came to lift the branches back up and threw them out of the way. When Vilya looked around the trunk, she could see the Voice of the Tempest standing by the doorway of her home, holding one hand in the air to control the wind. She was barely paying attention to what she was doing, as her green eyes quickly found Vilya. She didn't bother to ask what was going on. As the sound of tumbling branches could be heard in the distance, she lowered her hand and motioned for Vilya.

“Inside. Go to your room, we'll talk later.”

Vilya looked back at the tree, but didn't feel like protesting, and obeyed her mother with a huff.

* * *

Even though Vilya had closed her bedroom door, she could hear the people shouting downstairs.

“She's a menace, look at what she just did!”

“The well is completely closed off!”

“This has gone too far!”

When the complaints died down, Vilya had to open her door ajar to hear her mother's response:

“You know she didn't do it on purpose. And once the tree is cleared out, the well will be fine.”

"She as going to grow a tree in my house!" Elminar shouted.

Keyleth sighed.

“She takes after her father, she...”

But someone else cut her off:

“You can't keep blaming a father she doesn't have for her actions! This has gone for far too long! If you can't discipline her than send her to your friends in Whitestone, but we won't stand another day like this.”

Her mother fell silent for a moment. Another man spoke, whom Vilya recognized as her grandfather.

"What Keyleth is trying to say is that Vilya is still young and full of life which we cannot let wither away. She's a talented druid, as we all know, and in time she will calm down."

"So what you're saying is that you won't do anything about it?" Elminar shouted back.

There was another uproar from the people and Vilya was about to close her door again when she heard her mother say:

"Enough. I'll go talk to her. In the meantime have Derrig lead a small team, to move the tree out of the well and plant it down in the forest."

Vilya heard shuffling and she closed her bedroom door quickly. Time for a quick exit. She walked across her bedroom and went to open her window. She was about to step over the window frame when she heard behind her:

“If this was some kind of message that you wanted to go to Whitestone, you could have just asked me.”

She turned around. Her mother was standing in the door frame. She'd left her staff and cape downstairs. The massive antler circlet was still resting on her head, seemingly breaded into her fiery red hair. She looked as young and beautiful as Vilya had always known her. But if she looked deep in her green eyes, there was something dark, and sad, that no one else ever seemed to notice.

Vilya stepped away from the window.

“Are you gonna send me there?”

Keyleth sighed and came to sit on her daughter's bed.

“I don't know. Should I? If I sent you to spend a few months in Whitestone, would you be calmer when you come back?”

Vilya huffed and crossed her arms.

“You can't get rid of me like that!”

Her mother gave her a pained look.

“I'm not trying to get rid of you! I'm trying to find the best solution for everyone. Vilya, you just destroyed the village well and almost killed four people! Even if it was an accident, which I know it was, everyone is going to expect me to do something about you!”

“Then send me away then! Everyone will be happier without me!”

Keyleth stood up suddenly and tried to take a few steps toward her daughter. Vilya recoiled to the window, and Keyleth stopped.

“I won't! I don't want to send you away, because it's not going to change anything. But if you stay here... Promises and good words are not going to be enough anymore! And I don't want to clip your wings like that. You're still a child, you should be able to enjoy yourself!”

Keyleth sighed longly and looked down.

"If your father was here..." she mumbled thoughtfully as if trying to think of what he would have done.

This angered Vilya to no end.

"Well, he's not here! He's not and he never was!"

Keyleth gasped.

“You know it's not his fault!”

“Do I? You never told me anything about him! He doesn't matter and he never will!”

“Don't speak of him like that!” Keyleth warned.

"No! You stop talking about him like he matters! Everything you do is say I look like him or I act like him, or what he would have done, and it's stupid because none of it matters! I don't want to be 'his daughter', and if I had any say in it, I wouldn't want to be yours either!”

Silence dropped between them. The air became heavy. Vilya realized only too late what she'd just said, but she couldn't back down anymore. She could see her mother's eyes welling up with tears. She hesitated for a second, before pulling the circlet off of her head and throwing it on the bed. In the blink of an eye, she'd turned into a raven, and was flying out of the window.

* * *

Vilya dived down the mountainside and flew straight toward the forest. There wasn't a moment where she stopped to consider what she was doing or where she was going. Whitestone was north, and that was all she needed to know. Her small black wings flapped frantically, as her mind was racing.

Why had she said that? It was so mean and so untrue. The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to cry. Memories of when she was younger came flooding back into her mind. Keyleth was the kindest and most gentle mother she could have ever hoped for. She taught her so much about nature and her powers. They used to spend entire afternoons in the forest, turned into squirrels, just having fun. She'd done absolutely everything she could to raise her and make her happy, all on her own. If anything, she didn't deserve a daughter like Vilya. That was her final conclusion. She was the worst daughter anyone could wish for. Well, she wouldn't be bothering Keyleth anymore.

Distracted as she was by her thoughts, she didn't see the dark shadow of something flying above her. When she finally felt its presence, it was too late. Talons rushed to her, and grabbed her, digging themselves deep in her belly. Vilya let out a hurtful croak and looked frantically around her. A large eagle had caught her and was flying back up. Its claws were digging themselves deeper in her flesh and she croaked again. She'd never been attacked in wild shape before, and she was afraid of what would happen if she turned back to herself. Would she free-fall, or drag the eagle with her. Would its talons still be holding her?

Panicked, Vilya started batting her wings frantically. She croaked as loud as she could. Every time she struggled, however, the eagle dug his talons deeper into her body. She wondered why she hadn't been forced back into her original shape yet. Dark feathers fell off her body and lightly descended toward the forest. This was it, she thought, among the sound of flapping wings. She was going to die then.

There was a flash of light, and the eagle let her go. It cawed angrily and flew away. Vilya was so stunned that for a moment she forgot to flap her wings, and let herself plummet toward the forest. At the last minute, she remembered that she had wings. She flapped frantically once again, ignoring the pain and the blood dripping out of the holes the talons had made. She disappeared between the foliage to the trees and zipped past all the trunks until she found a calm place to land. She perched herself clumsily on a fallen trunk and dropped her wild shape.

Vilya leaned against the trunk, her breathing hard and her chest heaving. She passed her hands over her body but found no marks left. Her sigh of relief mingled with her breathing. She decided to remain there for a moment. She'd flown for barely ten minutes and she was already tired.

There was a soft noise to her right as if something had landed. She doubted the eagle had followed her down. She tried to pull herself straighter, though she didn't have quite the time to stand up when the figure emerged out of the trees.

“Hello sapling, it's been a while.”

Vilya stared at the man standing in front of her. It wasn't quite like looking in a mirror. More like finally seeing what aunt Vex would have looked like if she were a man. Long dark hair, lightly braided in the back. Vilya looked into his dark eyes and realized they were the same as hers. He adorned a black armor, with the head of a raven on the collar. What she first thought was a cape were actual dark wings, which draped themselves around his body. On his right arm were two protruding bones, shaped like antlers.

“You're him,” Vilya could only say.

Vax chuckled and came to sit on the trunk beside his daughter.

“Is that all you have to say to your old man?”

Vilya blinked. She had more. She had fifteen years of anger and solitude to throw his way. Not a single word of it passed her lips.

“That's not how I would have imagined our first conversation either,” he said, “but I've learned that a lot of things never go as planned.”

“You never liked plans,” Vilya said. “Aunt Vex told me.”

Vax laughed with amusement.

“Yeah, it's true.”

“Why are you here?” Vilya asked, more confused than mad.

“When the Raven Queen took me we made a deal. Every eight years I get to spend a few hours with my family. How else do you think that you'd been made?”

Vilya blushed and cleared her throat.

“I never thought about it.”

Vax laughed.

“I was on my way to see your mother but I thought you might need me more than she does right now.”

Vilya looked at her father in shock.

“How can you even say that?! After all the bad things I said to her!”

Vax offered a comforting smile.

“Your mother is the strongest person I know,” he replied. “She knows you didn't mean it, and when you go back and apologize, she'll forgive you, because that's who she is.”

Vilya shook her head.

“I can't go back. They all hate me there, all I do is cause problems.”

“We all make mistakes, what matters is how we try to amend for them. But you have to make that first step.”

As he spoke, Vax pulled something out of his belt and held it out for Vilya to take. Vilya stared at her circlet. She didn't try to take it back. How her father had gotten his hands on it she would never know.

When Vilya made no move for the circlet, Vax started to play with it, twirling it between his fingers.

“Your mother asked me if I wanted you to have my circlet, but I thought you should have your own. I picked up all the little pieces of antlers I could find and had them all lined up on your windowsill, so you'd picked your favorite.”

Vilya looked at her father with wide eyes. She remembered it. How excited she'd been when her mother told her she would finally get her circlet. How she'd woken up the next morning to find all those little antlers on her windowsill, all lined up, and a single raven flying off. Her mother was going to give her one already made, but when Vilya told her that a raven had brought her antlers, she'd smiled and helped her make her own.

“It was you?”

“It's always me. I'm always there. I come back to you whenever I can. My lady doesn't like it that much, but I think I've made her understand now.”

Vilya was stunned for a moment. Finally, she took the circlet out of her father's hand. She stared at it longly. Besides the small antlers, she'd placed little red flowers on it, and small black feathers she'd picked up on the ground.

“If you're not a druid, why do you have a circlet?” she asked, looking up.

Vax chuckled.

“Your mother made it for me. There was a year, before I died, where we left Vox Machina and came to live here. We made all sorts of plans back then. She had decided that she was going to make a druid out of me. I told her all I wanted was to be able to make tomato grow...”

Vax's sad laughter died down.

“Then all the plans went out of the window...”

Vilya's shoulder sagged as she looked down at the circlet in her hands.

“Will you go back with me? Talk to mom?”

“I have nothing to say to your mother, except how much I love her, and I miss her. This is a conversation you should probably have with her alone.”

Vax stood up, and a few feathers of his wings fell off.

"I'll come back to see you later," he promised. "Right after I make sure I don't have another niece or nephew that I don't know about yet."

Vax gave her one last smile and flew off, turning back into a large raven before he broke through the canopy. Vilya watched her father fly off. Then, she picked up a few feathers and placed them securely in her circlet. After making sure the circlet was safely back on her head, she turned into a raven and flew off.

* * *

Keyleth was seating at her desk, her cape resting over her hunched shoulders. She was staring at a piece of paper, trying to write a letter to Vex and Percy. She'd spent the good part of an hour trying to convince herself that this was the right thing to do. That Vilya would be a lot happier with all her cousins in Whitestone. She still wasn't convinced.

There was a knock on the door, but Keyleth didn't reply. She'd asked Derrig to deal with the giant tree, and she would not be hearing any more complaints about Vilya that day. Another knock. Again, she gave no answer. Then, a muffled voice passed through the wood:

“Mom? I'm sorry, I didn't mean any of it. I'm terrible and I don't deserve you. I'm so sorry.”

Keyleth flew out of her chair and threw the door open. On the other side, Vilya jumped back in surprise. Before she could start her string of apologies again, Keyleth threw her arms around her and hugged her tightly.

“I'm sorry,” Keyleth whispered in her ear, surprising Vilya even more.

“For what? I'm the one who's sorry. You're just trying to make me happy and I keep messing it up.”

Keyleth shushed her.

"You're not messing anything up. You were right. You remind me of your dad so much and I just... It was unfair of me to always compare you two... I miss him so much..."

“He misses you too,” Vilya replied, surprising her mother.

Keyleth took a step back and stared longly into her daughter's face.

“How do you... Did he talk to you?”

Vilya nodded.

“We talked... He said he'll be back later to see you, but he went to see his sister right now.”

Keyleth started holding her even tighter, and crying, though Vilya couldn't tell if they were tears of joy, or sadness, or relief, or all three at once, or something else. When she finally let her daughter go, panic seemed to seize her entire body.

"I need to get ready... I need to... Oh, gods..."

She brushed the tears out of her eyes.

“I can't be crying when he comes back.”

Vilya watched her mother do with amusement. This was a side she'd never seen before. The enamored teenager who had never left her mother's body, apparently.

“Mom, I'm sure it'll be fine.”

Keyleth nodded, trying to brush her sudden lack of confidence away.

“I'm just gonna... I'll be right back.”

Keyleth darted into her bedroom, and Vilya tried to contain her laughter. She looked back into her mother's office. On the desk, beside a blank piece of parchment, was the tree medallion. Vilya checked behind her one last time before pocketing the medallion. She swore she could hear the croak of a raven through the window. She looked up and found a raven observing her.

“I promise I won't drop it in a bucket this time,” she said.

This seemed enough for the raven, who flew off. A few seconds later, there was a knock on the door.

“I'll get it!” Vilya shouted.

When she opened the front door, Vax stepped in quickly, whispering:

"Elminar is out of his house right now. If you hurry..."

Vilya smirked and ran off. Vax turned around and watched his daughter disappear behind a house, and a small raven with antlers emerge soon after. He chuckled and closed the door behind him.

“I'm home.”


End file.
